Go for a Run, Make Yourself Focus

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a coach or expert, I'm your average athlete candidly sharing my training experience.

Recently, I had an unofficial Personal best for my half marathon time, 1:50:25 for 13.1 miles, 8:26 average/mile.  3 years ago I ran my old record, 1:54:33, 8:47/mile pace.  I went out for a training run and managed a 4 minute personal best--that was not the goal of my day, I couldn't believe it happened.

I am training for the Dopey Challenge at Disney World (4 days of running, 5k, 10k, half marathon and full marathon) which will be in January--I am behind on my training, so in early November, I decided my training plan would be to just run as much as I could, long slow distances, long ended up being less than 10 miles, but I would run at least 5 days a week, always having one off, if not more.  No heart rate, no coach, no plan, just run.

Since I've been so distracted and unfocused, last weekend before I began my long run, I decided I really needed to have a focus for my run.  My focus would be on the first hour of running, I would think about my posture and my cadence, I wouldn't worry about my heart rate, how far, or how fast--just to keep my feet moving at a decent cadence.  If you think about moving your feet faster, and you focus on that, you can.  They say average/normal runners have a 160-170 cadence, I currently work hard to be at 170, but find it easy to now stay in the range, if I occasionally focus on this.

After running an hour with my focus, I decided to keep this focus as long as I could.  My legs felt great and my mind was focused, and in the end I was shocked by the results.

I wore my cadence sensor on my shoe today, but did not look at it once while I was running 8 miles, and my average cadence was 164.  If you take time to work on your cadence, it becomes something natural and you will in turn be able to naturally increase your speed.

I'm your average athlete--I believe you can increase your speed by taking time to focus on your cadence and how fast you move your feet and this makes it more effortless for you to run.  The next time you are on a run, just think about moving your feet faster and see what happens.  Improving your run cadence will take consistency--how do you begin?  For me, I would go for a 3-4 mile run, and spend half that time focusing on my cadence, and the other half just running.  I would suggest to take part of each run and focus on your cadence and remember, consistency matters.